Tuesday, January 21, 2014

“Man is here to affirm himself in the universe, that is his first
business, but also to evolve and finally to exceed himself: he has to
enlarge his partial being into a complete being, his partial
consciousness into an integral consciousness; he has to achieve mastery
of his environment but also world-union and world-harmony; he has to
realise his individuality but also to enlarge it into a cosmic self and a
universal and spiritual delight of existence. A transformation, a chastening
and correction of all that is obscure, erroneous and ignorant in his
mentality, an ultimate arrival at a free and wide harmony and
luminousness of knowledge and will and feeling and action and character,
is the evident intention of his nature; it is the ideal which the
creative Energy has imposed on his intelligence, a need implanted by her
in his mental and vital substance. But this can only be accomplished by
his growing into a larger being and a larger consciousness:
self-enlargement, self-fulfilment, self-evolution from what he partially
and temporarily is in his actual and apparent nature to what he
completely is in his secret self and spirit and therefore can become
even in his manifest existence, is the object of his creation. This hope
is the justification of his life upon earth amidst the phenomena of the
cosmos. The outer apparent man, an ephemeral being subject to the
constraints of his material embodiment and imprisoned in a limited
mentality, has to become the inner real Man, master of himself and his
environment and universal in his being. In a more vivid and less
metaphysical language, the natural man has to evolve himself into the
divine Man; the sons of Death have to know themselves as the children of
Immortality. It is on this account that the human birth can be
described as the turning-point in the evolution, the critical stage in
earth-nature.

It follows at once that the knowledge we have to
arrive at is not truth of the intellect; it is not right belief, right
opinions, right information about oneself and things—that is only the
surface mind’s idea of knowledge. To arrive at some mental conception
about God and ourselves and the world is an object good for the
intellect but not large enough for the Spirit; it will not make us the
conscious sons of Infinity. Ancient Indian thought meant by knowledge a
consciousness which possesses the highest Truth in a direct perception
and in self-experience.”

“We’re going into the labyrinth. She had proposed that we start a business together, and in fact that happened. The business is called Pharmacophilia. And so instead of talking about psychopharmacological engineering, and theorizing, we’re going to start doing it. With whatever we can do now, undercapitalized without a lot of resources. And our first product will be Pharmahuasca. Those who are familiar with The Entheogen Review and other publications surely know that it’s more or less a code-word for an ayahuasca analogue made with pure compounds, as opposed to plant extracts or teas or infusions. And there are possibilities of making them legally. The MAOI—the ayahuasca alkaloids—ß-carbolines, are not controlled anywhere to my knowledge except in Japan. As for the tryptamines, in Europe DMT is the only one that’s controlled, unless you classify LSD and ibogaine as tryptamines, which certainly they are. But of the simple, what I call the short-acting tryptamines, DMT is the only one that is controlled. And so that gives you quite a lot of latitude for different tryptamines that can be added. So we’re going to make this as two separate pills, one of which is the Natural Herbal Relaxant, which is a minimal MAOI dose of ß-carboline, and the other one is the Natural Herbal Tonic, which is a minimal psychotropic dose of a short-acting tryptamine which is legal. And so one tablet of the one, plus one to three tablets of the other will give a three- to four-hour pharmahuasca experience.”Spiritual and Mystical Experiences“For many, perhaps most, people the main reason to partake of Ayahuasca is spiritual. In all traditional and institutionalized contexts of Ayahuasca the consumption of the brew is a sacrament, a sacred ritual. It is not for nothing that psychoactive plants have been called ‘plants of the gods’ (Schultes and Hoffman, 1979) and that for many the term ‘entheogen’ (i.e. that generating the god within) is currently replacing the older and, to some, pejorative, terms ‘hallucinogen’ and ‘psychedelic.’ Personally, if I were to pick one single effect of Ayahuasca that had the most important impact on my life (there were many and the choice of one is not all that easy), I would say that before my encounter with the brew I was an atheist (I used to define myself as a nineteenth-century-middle-European-like intellectual who is a devout atheist with a strong affinity to Jewish history and its scholarly tradition) and when I returned back home after my long journey in South America, I no longer was one. Likewise, a significant number of informants I have interviewed indicated that the main lesson they received from Ayahuasca was religious or spiritual. ‘Ayahuasca showed me that God exists,’ ‘I have come to appreciate the place of the sacred in human life,’ ‘I have encountered the Divine,’ are all statements I have heard more than one person say. There are many individuals who, in direct consequence of their experience with Ayahuasca, underwent a radical religious or spiritual conversion. Towards the end of sessions, it is very common for members to tell the group of the great impact that the encounter with the ‘tea’ has had on their lives. Many times in such testimonies I have heard people proclaim that this encounter was the single most important event in their lives, that it had totally changed them, that with it they found healing and new meaning to their human existence. For some, the transformative impact of Ayahuasca is long-lasting and its effects remain throughout the course of the person’s entire life. The consideration of the spiritual and mystical experiences associated with Ayahuasca extends beyond the cognitive-psychological domain proper. A serious theoretical examination of these experiences should include analyses pertaining to personality theory, clinical psychology, metaphysics, and theology. This discussion is bound to involve observations and reflections of a personal and speculative nature, ones calling for a style of discourse very different from that I have adopted here. Hence, the topic is outside of the present framework. Here I would only like to make several brief phenomenological remarks and to relate the experiences encountered with Ayahuasca to those reported in the literature on mysticism; for pertinent general discussions the reader is referred to Bucke (1901), James (1902), Underhill (1911), Stace (1960), Maslow (1970), and Scharfstein (1974), as well as Masters and Houston (1966), and Wainwright (1981) who specifically discuss substance-induced mystical and religious experiences.”Encountering the Divine“Earlier I examined visions in which God, deities, and divine beings are encountered. The emphasis there was on the visual aspects of the visions; here I would like to focus on their spiritual aspects and on the experience people characterize as encountering the Divine.

Not surprisingly, it is not easy to describe experiences of this kind. Here, indeed, we reach the realm of the ineffable. There is no question in my mind that when people say that they have had ‘an encounter with the Divine’ they are referring to a genuine experience that they have had. I have had such experiences too. Explaining what this experience consists of, however, is less clear. Nor is it clear that all people employ the phrase with the same facility. I have asked several of my informants to explain what they meant by this term. Their answers included references to ‘a presence which is full,’ ‘the ground of all that exists,’ ‘the source of all life,’ ‘the fountain of all wisdom,’ ‘the utmost perfection,’ and ‘sublime happiness.’

An experience that for me was very powerful occurred at a Daime session:

‘I was sitting in front of a white wall on which a golden star of David (the seal of Solomon) was inscribed [this was real—this symbol is central in the Santo Daime Church]. The star-shaped figure was shining and I felt a presence very strongly. The expression ‘behind the Veil’ (traditionally employed in Judaism to characterize indirect encounters with the Divine) came to my mind and I engaged in a silent communication with whatever power was there.’

Subsequently, in a letter to a friend I wrote that I was washed by grace and that I understood that all Existence is infused with the Divine, with sacredness.”Mystical Experiences

“As noted, various aspects of the Ayahuasca experience are reminiscent of patterns found in reports of mystical experiences encountered in many religious traditions. In particular, I would like to point out that all the classical characteristics of mystical experiences defined by Stace (1960) are encountered with Ayahuasca (see also Bucke, 1901; James, 1902; Forman, 1990; Wade, 1996; and Merkur, 1999). Stace distinguishes between two types of mystical experience which he labels the ‘extrovertive’ and ‘introvertive.’ Each of these is defined by a series of seven characteristics. However, out of the seven only the first characteristic significantly differs for the two types.

Stace further claims that only the introvertive type can be induced by external means. I disagree: all the experiences he associates with the extrovertive are also encountered with Ayahuasca. In the light of this disagreement, and since with respect to most features the two types are the same, I have opted to combine the two aspects in one paragraph and present just one list of characteristics, not two, as Stace does.

With Ayahuasca all the patterns associated with both types can be encountered. Following is a list of these patterns along with commentary on the comparable phenomena encountered with Ayahuasca.

1. Unity. In the extrovertive case, unity pertains to the mystic’s perception of the world; in the introvertive case, unity pertains to the mystic’s state of consciousness. Consequently, in the former case the mystic directly feels that behind the multiplicity in the world there is oneness that is apprehended as unitary consciousness devoid of sensual form and conceptual content. In the latter, the mystic feels that the boundaries of the self dissipate and that he or she becomes one with an existence larger than him- or herself. Both patterns are encountered with Ayahuasca.

2. Transcendence of time and space. The mystic feels that time and space are no longer relevant.

3. Noesis. The mystic regards what he or she experiences as illumination or true knowledge. In particular, visions and ideations are taken to pertain to an objective, independent reality. The assessment that this is the case is grounded in a direct, intuitive feeling.

4. Positive feelings of blessedness, joy, peace, happiness. All these feelings are very marked with Ayahuasca. Harmony is yet another pillar of this experience.

5. A sense of sacredness. This is manifested in whatever is being apprehended is taken to be holy and divine. This is the general atmosphere that Ayahuasca induces.

6. Paradoxicality. Mystical experiences seem to defy the standard cannons of logic. The medieval philosopher and mystic Nicholas de Cusa said explicitly that in order to reach the higher realms of the Divine one has to leave rationality behind:

‘The abode wherein You [God] dwell unveiledly—an abode surrounded by the coincidences of contradictories. And this coincidence is the wall of Paradise, wherein You dwell. The gate of this wall is guarded by a most lofty rational spirit; unless the spirit is vanquished the entrance will not be accessible. Therefore, on the other side of the coincidence of contradictories You can be seen—but not at all on this side.’

7. Ineffability. Many facets of the Ayahuasca experience are described by drinkers as being beyond any verbal description. I reckon that the most fitting thing is not to say anything further here; for general philosophical discussion on this matter, see Stace (1960) and S. Katz (1992).

Lastly in the literature it is also pointed out that mystical experiences often have concrete, pragmatic effects. Indeed, some have taken the transformative impact to be a defining property of these experiences (see Pahnke and Richards, 1966; Pahnke, 1972). This impact may manifest in religious conversion, changes in world-views and belief systems, and in new definitions of one’s personal and ethical values. As indicated in the introductory comments to this section, with Ayahuasca such manifestations are common, and often they are quite radical. For general discussion of the long-term psychological and psychotherapeutic impact of psychotropic substances the reader is refered to Masters and Houston (1966) and Grof (1980, 1994, 2009).

In sum, all the paradigmatic characteristics of the mystical experience are encountered with Ayahuasca.

By way of conclusion, let me point out that the foregoing comparative statements also bear on the more general question regarding the status, meaning, and value of religious and spiritual experiences induced by the ingestion of psychoactive agents. Are these comparable to the experiences of mystics attained without external agents? Are they as valuable? With respect to the first facet of the question, the phenomenological, my empirical study of Ayahuasca leads me to answer with a categorical ‘yes.’ The second facet, that of value judgement, is to be discussed elsewhere.”

“Religion,
leaving constantly its little shining core of spiritual experience, has
lost itself in the obscure mass of its ever extending ambiguous
compromises with life: in attempting to satisfy the thinking mind, it
more often succeeded in oppressing or fettering it with a mass of
theological dogmas; while seeking to net the human heart, it fell itself
into pits of pietistic emotionalism and sensationalism; in the act of
annexing the vital nature of man to dominate it, it grew itself vitiated
and fell a prey to all the fanaticism, homicidal fury, savage or harsh
turn for oppression, pullulating falsehood, obstinate attachment to
ignorance to which that vital nature is prone; its desire to draw the
physical in man towards God betrayed it into chaining itself to
ecclesiastic mechanism, hollow ceremony and lifeless ritual.”

Saturday, January 4, 2014

“When seen from
the most fundamental physical point of view, all processes—natural
or social, geological or historical, gradual or sudden—are just
conversions of energy that must conform to the laws of thermodynamics
as such conversions increase the overall entropy (a measure of the
dispersal of energy) in the universe. This perspective would make the
possession and mastery of energy resources and their ingenious use
the critical factor shaping human affairs. Also, given the
progressively higher use of energy in major civilizations, this
perspective would lead logically to a notion of linear advances with
history reduced to a quest for increased complexity that is made
possible by higher energy flows. People who could command—and
societies and civilizations which could use large and high-quality
energy resources with superior intensities and efficiencies—would
be obvious thermodynamic winners; those converting less with lower
efficiencies would be fundamentally disadvantaged.Such a
deterministic interpretation of energy’s role in world history may
be a flawless proposition in terms of fundamental physics, but it
amounts to a historically untenable reductionism (explanation of
complex life-science processes and phenomena in terms of the laws of
physics and chemistry) of vastly more complex realities. Energy
sources and their conversions do not determine a society’s
aspirations, its ethos (distinguishing character, sentiment, moral
nature, or guiding beliefs) and cohesion, its fundamental cultural
accomplishments, or its long-term resilience or fragility.Nicholas
Georgescu-Roegen, a pioneer of thermodynamic studies of economy and
the environment, made a similar point in 1980 by emphasizing that
such physical fundamentals are akin to geometric constraints on the
size of the diagonal in a square—but they do not determine its
color and tell us nothing whatsoever about how that color came about.
Analogically, all societies have their overall scope of action, their
technical and economic capacities, and their social achievements
constrained by the kinds of energy sources and by the varieties and
efficiencies of the prime movers they rely on—but these constraints
cannot explain such critical cultural factors as creative brilliance
or religious fervor, and they offer little predictive guidance
regarding a society’s form and efficiency of governance or its
dedication to the welfare of its citizens. The best explanation of
energy’s role in history thus calls for the difficult task of
balancing these two realities, of striving for explanations that take
into account both polarities.I strongly believe that the key
to managing future global energy needs is to break with the current
expectation of unrestrained energy use in affluent societies. Of
course, Ethiopia or China need more energy services and hence an
efficiently expanded supply. But most of the world’s low-entropy
flux is used by nations that could derive great benefits from
seriously examining their longstanding pursuit of higher energy
inputs. At the beginning of the twentieth century Ostwald tied the
availability of energy, substitution of labor by mechanical prime
moves, and increased efficiency of energy conversions to cultural
progress. And the extension of Lotka’s principle of maximized
energy flows to human affairs would mean that the most competitive
societies would strive for the highest possible energy
fluxes.Historical perspectives cast doubts on the validity of
the maximized power stratagem in civilization. Expansions of empires
may be seen as perfect examples of the striving for maximized power
flows, but societies commanding prodigious energy flows—be it late
imperial Rome or the early-twenty-first-century United States—are
limited by their very reach and complexity. They depend on energy and
material imports, are vulnerable to internal malaise, and display
social drift and the loss of direction that is incompatible with the
resources at their command. And even at the peak of their physical
powers these high-energy societies may not be able to deal with
assailants (be they Germanic tribes, Vietnamese peasants, or Islamic
terrorists) whose determination more than makes up for their
low-energy status.Higher energy use does not guarantee
anything except greater environmental burdens. Higher energy use does
not make a country more secure. The Soviet case, with nearly doubled
post-WW II per capita use but with a crippling share channeled into
armaments, was perhaps the most striking example during the latter
half of the twentieth century. Enormous energy use could not prevent
economic prostration, a fundamental reappraisal of the Soviet
strategic posture, and Mikhail Gorbachev’s initiation of
long-overdue changes. All of this was too little too late, and by
1991 the Soviet empire, at that time the world’s largest energy
producer, disintegrated.Ever higher energy use is not the
precondition for greater economic prosperity. Higher energy use in
farming does not guarantee prosperous agriculture. Increased energy
subsidies may be used with very poor efficiency in irrigation and
fertilization, may support unhealthy diets leading to obesity, or may
be responsible for severe environmental degradation incompatible with
permanent farming (higher soil erosion, irrigation-induced
salinization, pesticide residues). Higher energy use in industry does
not lead automatically to modernization in poor nations. Stalinist
USSR and Maoist China are examples of misallocation of energies into
inefficient, militarized economies.Higher energy use does not
bring greater cultural flowering. If this self-evident fact needs
illustrating, it is enough to juxtapose the Greek urban civilization
of 450 B.C.E. with today’s Athens, or Florence of the late
fifteenth century with Los Angeles of the early twenty-first century.
In both comparisons there is a difference of an entire order of
magnitude in per capita energy use of primary energy and an
immeasurably large inverse disparity in terms of respective
cultural legacies. Higher energy use beyond the desirable annual
energy consumption minima does not create a superior quality of life.
Higher energy flows actually erode quality of life, first for
populations that are immediately affected by the extraction or
conversion of energies, eventually for everyone through worrisome
global environmental changes.Higher energy use does not
promote social stability. Just the reverse is true: it tends to be
accompanied by greater social disintegration, demoralization, and
malaise. None of the social dysfunctions—the abuse of children and
women, violent crime, widespread alcohol and drug use—has ebbed in
affluent societies, and many of them have only grown worse. Higher
energy use does not bring necessarily high system efficiencies. Some
impressive efficiency increases of individual prime movers and fuel
and electricity converters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
brought about rapid technical advances. But as a large part of the
total primary energy supply (TPES) goes into short-lived disposable
junk and into dubious pleasures and thrills promoted by mindless
advertising, the overall ecological efficiency of high-energy modern
societies is hardly an improvement over the earlier state of human
development.Higher energy use also does not bring any
meaningful increase in civilization’s diversity. In natural
ecosystems the link between useful energy throughputs and species
diversity is clear. But it would be misleading to interpret an
overwhelming choice of consumer goods and the expanding availability
of services as signs of admirable diversity in modern high-energy
societies. Rather, with rampant (and often crass materialism),
increasing numbers of functionally illiterate and innumerate people,
and mass media that promotes the lowest common denominator of taste,
human intellectual diversity may be at an historically unrivaled low
point. Finally, there is no obvious link between satisfaction with
life, individual happiness, and per capita energy use.The
gains that elevate humanity, that make us more secure and more
hopeful about the future, cannot be brought solely by rising energy
use. National security is not primarily a matter of energy-intensive
weaponry. It is unattainable without social cohesion, without
purposeful striving for a more fulfilling future, and without a sound
economy. Economic security comes when nations do not live beyond
their means. True quality of life arises from awareness of history,
from strong cultural values, and from preservation of nature’s
irreplaceable services rather than from profligate extraction of its
goods and accumulation of ephemeral acquisitions. Social stability
rests above all else on the cohesiveness of family, on a sense of
belonging, and shared moral values. Satisfactory performance in
agriculture comes from farming without excess. Wise investment of
energy in a nation’s modernization requires diversification,
flexibility, and avoidance of shameful disparities. And true human
diversity and satisfaction with life is impossible without elevating
human efforts above absent-minded consumerism.At the
beginning of the twenty-first century a purposeful society could
guarantee a decent level of physical well-being and longevity, varied
nutrition, basic educational opportunities, and respect for
individual freedoms with annual TPES of 50-70 gigajoules (GJ) per
capita. Remarkably, the global mean of per capita energy consumption
at the beginning of the twenty-first century, 58 GJ per year, is
almost exactly in the middle of this range. Equitable sharing would
thus provide the world’s entire population with enough energy to
lead healthy, long, active lives enriched by more than a basic level
of education and the exercise of individual liberties. We could do
much better within a single generation. The global economy has been
lowering its energy intensity by about 1% per year, and a
continuation of this trend would mean that by 2025 the mean 2000 TPES
of 58 GJ per capita would be able to energize the production of goods
and services for which we now need about 75 GJ. Conversely, energy
services provided by 58 GJ in 2000 required about 70 GJ per capita of
initial inputs during the early 1970s, and that rate was the French
mean of the 1960s and the Japanese mean of the late 1960s.This
simple comparison demonstrates that an impressively high worldwide
standard of living could be achieved with virtually unchanged global
energy consumption. Billions of today’s poor people would be happy
to experience by 2025 the quality of life that was enjoyed by people
in Lyon or Kyoto during the 1960s. It would be an immense
improvement, a gain that would elevate them from barely adequate
subsistence to incipient affluence. But lowering the rich world’s
average TPES (as well as that of a few hundred million rich urbanites
in the poor world) seems to be an utterly unrealistic proposition.
Leaving aside the accumulation of ephemeral junk, what is so precious
about our gains through high energy use that we seem unwilling even
to contemplate a return to lower, but still (by any reasonable
standard) generous, levels of fuel and electricity
consumption?There is no benefit in pushing food supply above
13 megajoules/day; waste and spreading obesity are the only
‘rewards.’ And the activity that has been shown to be most
beneficial in preventing the foremost cause of death in Western
populations is a brisk 30-60 minute walk most days, not living in a
virtual electronic universe. As unrealistic as reductions of more
than 50% of average per capita TPES appear to be, the comparison
should be on our minds as we think about future energy consumption,
bridging the gap between the rich and poor worlds, and establishing a
more secure global civilization. After all, North America’s levels
of consumption cannot become global means. Extending the pattern of
5% of the world’s population consuming 25% of global TPES would
call for a quintupling of global energy use. And perpetuation of
existing inequalities only aggravates endless global strife.We
must realize that the quest for maximization of energy flows that has
marked the ascent of fossil-fueled civilization is not an inevitable
evolutionary trend. We must hope that during the twenty-first century
humanity will work out a new balance between adequate energy use to
sustain a decent quality of life and the imperative of not affecting
the biosphere in ways inimical to human survival. Achieving this
grand compromise is not inevitable or certain. Possibilities of other
futures easily come to mind, and there is no shortage of dark
visions. Our best hope is that we will find the determination to make
choices that would confirm the Linnaean designation of our
species—sapiens.”— Vaclav SmilWith
that as a basis established, what would a comprehensive energy policy
look like?◊ Provide an accurate, level-headed assessment of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions◊
Supply some skepticism which should be an inherent characteristic of
a scientific
mindhttp://www.vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/smil-article-ieee-20120700.pdf◊
Deploy several new small modular reactor
designshttp://www.nei.org/filefolder/Small_Modular_Reactors_Provide_Clean_Safe_Power_and_Industrial_Process_Heat_April_2011_5.pdf»
“The path that might free up nuclear fission energy’s true
potential involves the recognition that nuclear energy is not limited
to massive central station power plants. I like to point to the
developmental path of computers as an example of the path I advocate
for nuclear energy. In the very earliest days of both computing and
nuclear, discoveries were made on a modest scale and the technology
was developed by individuals and small teams.Both
technologies, however, were influenced by war and corporate power to
develop massive scale machines surrounded by security barriers and a
desire to limit access to the chosen few—including corporations
that used government functionaries to help protect their monopoly
profits.In computing, a few brave, independent thinkers broke
down the barriers that made scale so important to companies like IBM,
Control Data, Honeywell, UNIVAC, NCR and their corporate customers.
Computing pioneers invented ways to shift computing power to ever
smaller scale machines, moving through miniature computers to desktop
personal computers to laptops to handheld smartphones, tablets and
ultra portable laptops. Those innovators were joined by the rest of
us as we purchased their inventions, cheered their successes, and
excitedly contributed to a technological development that has
resulted in billions of people having instant access to the world’s
accumulated knowledge through devices they can carry in their
pockets.Unfortunately, nuclear fission, which has some of the
same potential for ‘Moore’s Law’ paced innovation as
microprocessor based computing, remains tied up in trivial threads
that have kept it almost entirely locked up in enormous scale
machines owned and operated by corporations and governments that can
only move lethargically. The owners and operators of current nuclear
machines have a huge reluctance to do anything that would
dramatically change the status quo because they are current
beneficiaries of the way things are today.The recent
acceptance in the United States that nuclear energy might be better
if we allow smaller machines is encouraging. Successful deployment of
smaller instances of nuclear energy just might help convince people
that the basic technology, like most technologies, can be used on a
community scale. Smaller instances of nuclear energy have the
potential to allow a far greater number of people to share the
experience of getting to know nuclear in the same intimate way that
submarine engineers get to know their source of power and
propulsion.I’d like to encourage more people who think
locally to think about how much impact it could have on all of the
things that they really care about if they could live in communities
that were powered by smaller nuclear energy systems. Those systems
could be distributed, locally operated, emission free, and reliable.
The used materials could be gathered into regional storage areas
until such time as there was a sufficient inventory to develop
effective recycling programs.Land, water and air resources
would be less stressed. Transportation requirements for new fuel
would be substantially reduced. Concentrated wealth and power in the
hands of the fossil fuel pushers would be dispersed. Perhaps I am a
utopian, but I also think of myself as an atomic optimist who is
capable of doing the math and recognizing the difference between a
realistic goal and an unreachable mirage.Additional
resources:NuScale Power (http://www.nuscalepower.com/)Flibe
Energy (http://flibe-energy.com/)Generation
mPower (http://www.generationmpower.com/)Gen4
Energy (http://www.gen4energy.com/)Westinghouse
SMR (http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/smr/index.htm)Holtec
SMR LLC (http://www.smrllc.com/)”—
Rod Adams (http://atomicinsights.com/)◊
Give high priority to high temperature gas-cooled
reactorshttp://www.ngnpalliance.org/images/general_files/HTGR%201%20page%20individual%20040611.pdfhttps://smr.inl.gov/Document.ashx?path=DOCS%2FReading+Room%2Fgeneral%2FGeneralcontenthtml_files_File_4thGeneration.pdfhttp://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/NGNP_ReporttoCongress_2010.pdf»
“There are currently two major types of high-temperature gas
reactor designs under consideration: the pebble bed and the prismatic
designs. Early versions of these reactor designs were demonstrated in
the 1970s and 1980s. Test reactors for the pebble bed and prismatic
designs are presently operating in China and Japan respectively. Both
of these reactor designs are graphite-moderated and helium-cooled,
and both use coated particle fuel kernels embedded in a graphitic
matrix material. The primary differences between these designs are
the shape of the fuel-bearing graphitic matrix and the distribution
of fuel in the reactor core.The pebble bed design uses
hundreds of thousands of tennis ball-sized spherical fuel elements
called pebbles. The pebbles are stacked together in contact with each
other like gumballs in a vending machine. The pebbles are added at
the top, circulate through the reactor core, and are removed from the
bottom. Fuel replacement in a pebble bed design is continuous and
allows for online refueling.The prismatic design uses
cylindrical fuel elements that are pressed into channels drilled into
graphite blocks. These fuel-bearing blocks are stacked in columns in
fixed locations in the reactor core. Refueling is accomplished by
shutting down the reactor, removing the fuel-bearing blocks, and
replacing the oldest ones with new blocks.”» “Although
the fuel configurations differ, both reactor types start with the
same kind of fuel particles, and it is these tiny particles that will
revolutionize electricity generation and industry throughout the
world. Developed and improved over the past 50 years, these
ceramic-coated nuclear fuel particles, three-hundredths of an inch in
diameter (0.75 millimeters), make possible a high-temperature reactor
that cannot melt down.This fourth-generation reactors uses
the fission reaction to produce heat, but instead of boiling water,
the heat is used to heat helium, an inert gas, which then directly
turns a turbine, which is connected to a generator to produce
electricity. By eliminating the steam cycle, these HTRs increase the
reactor efficiency by 50%, thus reducing the cost of power
production.At the center of each fuel particle is a kernel of
fissile fuel, such as uranium oxycarbide. This is coated with a
graphite buffer, and then surrounded by three or more successive
containment layers, two layers of pyrolytic carbon and one layer of
silicon carbide. The nuclear reaction at the center is contained
inside the particle, along with any products of the fission reaction.
The ceramic layers that encapsulate the fuel will stay intact up to
2,000°C (3,632°F), which is well above the highest possible
temperature of the reactor core, 1,600°C (2,912°F), even if there
is a failure of the coolant.The Chinese tested this in the
HTR-10 in September 2004, turning off the helium coolant. The reactor
shut down automatically, the fuel temperature remained under 1,600°C,
and there was no failure of the fuel containment. This demonstrates
both the inherent safety of the reactor design, and the integrity of
the fuel particles.How does the fission chain reaction occur
if all the fission products are contained inside the fuel particles?
The key is the neutron.When the atomic nucleus of uranium
splits apart, it produces heat in the form of fast-moving neutral
particles (neutrons) and two or more lighter elements. To sustain a
controlled fission chain reaction, every nucleus that fissions has to
produce at least one neutron that will be captured by another uranium
nucleus, causing it to split. The fission process is very fast;
ejected neutrons stay free for about 1/10,000 of a second. Then they
are either captured by fissionable uranium, or they escape without
causing fissioning, to be captured by other elements or by
nonfissionable uranium. Free neutrons can travel only about three
feet.In the HTR, each tiny fuel particle contains the fission
products produced by its uranium fuel kernel; only the neutrons leave
the fuel particles.The beauty of the high-temperature
reactor, and the reason that it can attain such a high temperature
(1,562°F, or 850°C, compared with the 600°F of conventional
nuclear plants) lies in the choice of helium, the inert gas that
carries the heat produced by the reactor. Helium has three key
advantages:1. Helium remains as a gas, and thus the hot
helium can directly turn a gas turbine, enabling conversion to
electricity without a steam cycle.2. Helium can be heated to
a higher temperature than water, so that the outlet temperature of
the HTR can be higher than in conventional water-cooled nuclear
reactors.3. Helium is inert and does not react chemically
with the fuel or the reactor components, so there is no corrosion
problem.The helium circulates through the nuclear core,
conveying the heat from the reactor through a connecting duct to the
turbine. Then it passes through a compressor system, where it is
cooled to 915°F (490°C), and reenters the nuclear core. The use of
helium as both the coolant and the gas that turns the turbine
simplifies the reactor by eliminating much of the equipment (and
expense) of conventional reactors. The high heat that is produced can
be coupled with many industrial processes, such as desalination of
seawater, hydrogen production, and coal liquefaction. These reactors
are also small enough to be located on site for some industries,
producing both electricity and process heat.The modular HTRs
are inherently safe, because they are designed to shut down on their
own, without any human intervention. Even in the unlikely event that
all the cooling systems failed, the reactor would shut down safely,
dissipating the heat from the core without any release of
radioactivity.The built-in safety systems include the unique
fuel particle containment: the fission products stay inside these
‘containment’ walls.Another safety feature is the
reactor’s ‘negative temperature coefficient’ operating
principle: if the operating temperature of the reactor goes up above
normal, the neutron speed goes up, which means that more neutrons get
captured without fissioning. In effect, this shuts down the chain
reaction. Additionally, there are certain amounts of ‘poisons’
present in the reactor core (the element erbium, for example), which
will help the process of capturing neutrons without fissioning, if
the operating temperature goes up.The first line of safety in
regulating the fission reactor is, of course, the control rods, which
are used to slow down or speed up the fissioning process. But if the
control rods were to fail, the reactor is designed to automatically
drop spheres of boron into the core; boron absorbs neutrons without
fissioning, and thus would stop the reaction.Additionally,
there are two external cooling systems, a primary coolant system and
a shutdown coolant system. If both of these should fail, there are
cooling panels on the inside of the reactor walls, which use natural
convection to remove the core heat to the ground. Because the reactor
is located below ground, the natural conduction of heat will ensure
that the reactor core temperature stays below 1,600°C, well below
the temperature at which the fuel particles will break apart.The
graphite moderator also helps dissipate heat in a shutdown.In
addition to the successful Chinese HTR-10 test shutdown, a similar
test was carried out on the AVR, the German prototype for the pebble
bed, at Jülich. In one test, reactor staff shut down the cooling
systems while the reactor was operating. The AVR shut itself down in
just a few minutes, with no damage to the nuclear fuel. In other
words, no meltdown was possible.The Department of Energy’s
Next Generation Nuclear Plant program plans to put a commercial-size
HTR on line . . . by the year 2030. So far, two industry groups have
received a small amount of funding for design studies, and there is a
target date of 2021 for a demonstration reactor of a type (pebble bed
or prismatic) to be determined. But even that slow timetable is not
sure, given the budget limits and lack of political priority. This
HTR project, called the Very High Temperature Reactor, is based at
Idaho National Laboratory, and is planned for coupling with a
hydrogen production plant. At the slow rate it is going, the United
States, a former nuclear pioneer, may find itself importing this
next-generation technology from a faster advancing nation.It
would make sense under the Next-Gen program for the United States to
build a prototype gas turbine modular helium reactor, because the
South Africans are building a pebble bed modular reactor, and this
would give the world working models of each type. But at the present
pace and budget, and without a major commitment, a US demonstration
reactor is barely on the horizon.The ability to revolutionize
nuclear power is now within our grasp, here in the United States, in
South Africa, in China, in the aftermath of the accident in Japan,
and even in Europe. The cost of developing the HTR is minuscule, in
comparison with the trillions of dollars being sunk into the
unproductive and losing gamblers on Wall Street. The cost of not
developing these fourth-generation reactors will be measured in
lives, and perhaps civilizations, lost.”» “Abundant high
quality, high temperature process heat from nuclear power will allow
for a vastly expanded supply of high value added chemicals, fuels,
polymers, lubricants, and other materials. These valuable products
will be produced from natural gas, gas hydrates, kerogens, bitumen,
coal, and biomass. They will be produced centrally, regionally, and
locally, as high temperature gas cooled reactors become more scalable
and transportable.It is not just about nuclear power. It is
also about the incredible number of abundances that clean, safe,
scalable and widely disseminated nuclear power will
facilitate.Entrenched, short-sighted fossil fuel interests
and faux environmentalists of the green persuasion will continue to
block such forms of reliable energy—wherever they can. It is up to
the rest of us to make sure that the human future has an abundance of
reliable power and energy, despite the obstructionists.”◊
Develop liquid fluoride thorium
reactorshttp://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/downloads/American_Scientist_Hargraves.pdfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw&hd=1http://energyfromthorium.com/plan/◊
Address waste concerns, and elaborate on ways they could be
alleviated or even
eliminatedhttp://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/134291/case-near-term-commercial-demonstration-integral-fast-reactorhttp://www.usnuclearenergy.org/PDF_Library/_GE_Hitachi%20_advanced_Recycling_Center_GNEP.pdfhttp://www.sacome.org.au/images/stories/Nuclear_Series_SA_Mines__Energy_Journal.pdfhttp://www.ne.anl.gov/pdfs/12_Pyroprocessing_bro_5_12_v14[6].pdfhttp://www.wipp.energy.gov/fctshts/salt.pdf»
And as a last resort “all analyses to date indicate that sub-seabed
disposal would be a safe and economical method of high level waste
disposal and that predictions could be made with a high degree of
confidence.”◊ Determine definitively if low energy
nuclear reactions are real, reproducible and able to be
controlledhttp://futureinnovation.larc.nasa.gov/view/articles/futurism/bushnell/low-energy-nuclear-reactions.htmlhttp://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KrivitSanewlookat.pdfhttp://www.ias.ac.in/pramana/v75/p617/fulltext.pdf»
“Under special circumstances, electromagnetic and weak interactions
can induce low-energy nuclear reactions to occur with observable
rates for a variety of processes. A common element in all these
applications is that the electromagnetic energy stored in many
relatively slow-moving electrons can – under appropriate
circumstances – be collectively transferred into fewer, much faster
electrons with energies sufficient for the latter to combine with
protons (or deuterons, if present) to produce neutrons via weak
interactions. The produced neutrons can then initiate low-energy
nuclear reactions through further nuclear transmutations.Our
analysis leads us to conclude that realistic possibilities exist for
designing LENR devices capable of producing ‘green energy,’ that
is, production of excess heat at low cost without dangerous nuclear
waste, lethal gamma rays or unwanted neutrons. The necessary tools
and the essential theoretical know-how to manufacture such devices
appear to be well within the reach of the technology available now.
Vigorous efforts must now be made to develop such devices whose
functionality requires all three interactions of the Standard Model
acting in concert.”» “We are still far from the
theoretical limits of the weak interaction physics for LENR
performance and are in fact inventing (in real time) the requisite
engineering, along with verifying the physics. When we concentrated
upon nuclear engineering beginning in the 1940s we ‘jumped’ to
the strong force/particle physics and leapt over the weak
force/condensed matter nuclear physics. We are going ‘back’ now
to study and hopefully develop this arena.The ‘precautionary
principle’ demands that we core down and determine realism for this
arena, given the truly massive-to-mind boggling benefits –
solutions to climate, energy and the limitations that restrict all
areas of NASA missions. The key to space exploration is energetics.
The key to supersonic transports and neighbor-friendly personal
fly/drive air vehicles is energetics, as simple examples of the
potential applications of this area of research.There are
estimates using just the performance of some of the devices under
study that 1% of the nickel mined on the planet each year could
produce the world’s energy requirements at the order of 25% the
cost of coal.No promises, but some seriously ‘strange’
things are going on, which we may be closer to understanding and if
we can optimize/engineer them as such, the world changes. Worldwide,
it is worth far more resources than are currently being devoted to
this research arena. There is a need to core down and determine
‘truth’ and if useful, the need to engineer and apply.”»
“If the remaining secrets of Nature can be unlocked, the likelihood
of LENRs becoming a viable source of clean energy is strong. LENR
does not represent a mere incremental increase in either energy
production or energy efficiency; it represents an exponentially
larger potential increase in energy-generation capacity than all
fossil fuel solutions combined.LENR has the potential to
provide unlimited production of electricity for homes, businesses and
industry. Most importantly, portable LENR devices could replace
liquid fuels for transportation. LENR devices would not have the
reliability limitations that exist with wind and solar and would not
require the intermediate step of converting wind or solar into stored
electrical power.”◊ Pursue plasmonics for photovoltaic
applicationshttp://www.erbium.nl/publications/pdfs/Nature%20Materials%20Editorial%20Plasmonics%20March%202010.pdf»
“There is no doubt that photovoltaic research will benefit
immensely from plasmonics, enabling use of low quality/low cost
materials and delivering cells with high performance and low
cost.”◊ Enhance geothermal
systemshttp://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdfhttp://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/pdfs/egs_basics.pdf»
“Geothermal energy from enhanced geothermal systems represents a
large, indigenous resource that can provide base-load electric power
and heat at a level that can have a major impact on the United
States, while incurring minimal environmental impacts. With a
reasonable investment in research and development (R&D), enhanced
geothermal systems (EGS) could provide 100 gigawatt electrical (GWe)
or more of cost-competitive generating capacity in the next 50 years.
Further, EGS provides a secure source of power for the long term that
would help protect America against economic instabilities resulting
from fuel price fluctuations or supply disruptions. Most of the key
technical requirements to make EGS work economically over a wide area
of the country are in effect, with remaining goals easily within
reach. This achievement could provide performance verification at a
commercial scale within a 10- to 15-year period nationwide.In
spite of its enormous potential, the geothermal option for the United
States has been largely ignored. In the short term, R&D funding
levels and government policies and incentives have not favored growth
of US geothermal capacity from conventional, high-grade hydrothermal
resources. Because of limited R&D support of EGS in the United
States, field testing and supporting applied geoscience and
engineering research has been lacking for more than a decade. Because
of this lack of support, EGS technology development and demonstration
recently has advanced only outside the United States with
accompanying limited technology transfer. This has led to the
perception that insurmountable technical problems or limitations
exist for EGS. However, in our detailed review of international
field-testing data so far, we did not uncover any major barriers or
limitations to the technology.EGS is one of the few renewable
energy resources that can provide continuous base-load power with
minimal visual and other environmental impacts. Geothermal systems
have a small footprint and virtually no emissions, including carbon
dioxide. Geothermal energy has significant base-load potential,
requires no storage, and, thus, it complements other renewables –
solar (concentrated solar power and photovoltaic), wind, hydropower –
in a lower-carbon energy future. In the shorter term, having a
significant portion of our base load supplied by geothermal sources
would provide a buffer against the instabilities of gas price
fluctuations and supply disruptions, as well as nuclear plant
retirements.To a great extent, energy markets and government
policies will influence the private sector’s interest in developing
EGS technology. In today’s economic climate, there is reluctance
for private industry to invest its funds without strong guarantees.
Thus, initially, it is likely that government will have to fully
support EGS fieldwork and supporting R&D. Later, as field sites
are established and proven, the private sector will assume a greater
role in cofunding projects – especially with government incentives
accelerating the transition to independently financed EGS projects in
the private sector. Our analysis indicates that, after a few EGS
plants at several sites are built and operating, the technology will
improve to a point where development costs and risks would diminish
significantly, allowing the levelized cost of producing EGS
electricity in the United States to be at or below market
prices.Given these issues and growing concerns over long-term
energy security, the federal government will need to provide funds
directly or introduce other incentives in support of EGS as a
long-term ‘public good,’ similar to early federal investments in
large hydropower dam projects and nuclear power reactors. Based on
growing markets in the United States for clean, base-load capacity,
with a combined public/private investment of about $800 million to $1
billion over a 15-year period, EGS technology could be deployed
commercially on a timescale that would produce more than 100,000 MWe
or 100 GWe of new capacity by 2050. This amount is approximately
equivalent to the total R&D investment made in the past 30 years
to EGS internationally, which is still less than the cost of a
single, new-generation, coal power plant.Making such an
investment now is appropriate and prudent, given the enormous
potential of EGS and the technical progress that has been achieved so
far in the field. Having EGS as an option will strengthen America’s
energy security for the long term in a manner that complements other
renewables, cleaner fossil fuels, and next-generation nuclear.”◊
Present the main problem with renewables at this point, and suggest
solutionshttp://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2012/05/17/the-most-important-problem-in-renewable-energy-r-squared-energy-tv-ep-22/»
“There are many different technologies for heat or electrical
storage at different stages of maturity and with a wide range of
characteristics. It is unlikely that a single solution will emerge in
the future given the wide variations in possible applications. Pumped
storage and compressed air energy storage are both commercial
technologies for long-term large-scale storage and may be joined by
flow batteries, hydrogen and cryogenic energy storage in the longer
term. For fast response, flywheels are currently commercial, but
supercapacitors also offer interesting prospects. In decentralized
applications, a wide variety of battery technologies are relevant,
with lead-acid and nickel and sodium-sulphur the most likely near
term choices, and metal-air holding longer-term promise. The use of
second-life lithium-ion batteries could be an interesting option. A
variety of heat storage technologies, including those using novel
materials, are also worth investigating further.”»
“Cryogenic energy storage may prove to be the best of the current
crop of contenders for now, until flow batteries are perfected.”◊
Find out if some form of fission/fusion hybrid is a more viable
option in the medium-term than fully realized
fusionhttp://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/19682/InTech-Thorium_fission_and_fission_fusion_fuel_cycle.pdfhttp://www.ap.columbia.edu/SMproceedings/11.ContributedPapers/11.Manheimer.pdfhttp://web.mit.edu/fusion-fission/WorkshopTalks/Manheimer_Fuel_Cycle.pdfhttp://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/201104/manheimer.cfmhttp://fire.pppl.gov/Hybrid_Report_Final.pdf»
“Without fission or fusion breeding, not only will we be unable to
lift poor countries up the curve, prosperous countries will begin to
slide back down.*This is the real threat to
civilization.*”◊ Make mention of methanol, dimethyl ether
and various drop-in replacement
fuelshttp://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/TNA13-Zubrin.pdfhttp://desertec-uk.org.uk/articles/methanol_synthesis.pdfhttp://144.206.159.178/ft/641/597576/14316718.pdfhttp://biology.duke.edu/jackson/ep2012.pdf»
“Methanol is the simplest alcohol and one of the world’s most
widely used commodity chemicals. Global capacity of methanol is
similar to that of ethanol at 24 billion gallons. Most of the world’s
methanol is produced from natural gas, but it can be produced from
other materials, such as coal or biomass.Methanol’s
strength is that it is cheap to produce relative to both gasoline and
ethanol. It is not unusual for methanol to trade at a 20% or greater
discount to ethanol and gasoline per equivalent unit of
energy.Methanol’s disadvantages are similar to the
disadvantages of ethanol relative to gasoline. Methanol has a lower
energy density than gasoline (about 2 gallons of methanol are equal
to the energy content of a gallon of gasoline), and it is more
corrosive than ethanol (which is more corrosive than
gasoline).Methanol is also much more toxic than ethanol.
Despite the toxicity, methanol is commonly sold in the US as a
windshield washer solution. Further, methanol degrades much more
quickly than gasoline (which is not only toxic but also contains
carcinogenic compounds) in the environment as it is quickly consumed
by microorganisms.Like ethanol, methanol has a much higher
octane rating than gasoline and could benefit from running in engines
with higher compression ratios. Methanol has been used in
high-performance race cars in the US for many years, and was tested
extensively in California from 1980 to 2005 as a part of the
California Methanol Program.In response to the oil crisis of
1979, the state of California began to investigate gasoline
alternatives. After considering ethanol, methanol, natural gas,
electricity, hydrogen, and propane, the California Energy Commission
(CEC) determined that ‘methanol stood out clearly as having the
best potential for replacing petroleum on a widespread basis.’That
state partnered with automakers to build a fleet of flex-fuel
vehicles (FFVs) that could operate on M85 (a blend of 85% methanol
and 15% gasoline). Major fuel retailers participated in the program
to provide a limited fuel infrastructure for the vehicles.By
1997 there we over 21,000 M85 FFVs in the US, most of which were in
California. At that time, the state had over 100 methanol refueling
stations providing fuel for light-duty vehicles as well as hundreds
of methanol-fueled transit and school buses.While drivers
were reportedly satisfied with the performance of the methanol FFVs,
the limited fueling infrastructure proved frustrating for drivers
attempting to keep their vehicles fueled. After 25 years and
200,000,000 miles of operation, California terminated the methanol
program in 2005. This was also the year that the Renewable Fuel
Standard was passed in the US, which shifted the advantage strongly
to corn ethanol with a national mandate than methanol has never
enjoyed in the US. Methanol is used as an automotive fuel in China,
but in the US it has never had the widespread political support of
corn ethanol. Thus, some of the issues—such as the compatibility
with automobiles and fuel infrastructure—have not been addressed
adequately for methanol as they have been for ethanol. Still, with
sufficient political support, methanol could make a major
contribution as a long-term substitute for gasoline.”» “An
additional advantage of methanol is that it can be used to produce
dimethyl ether (DME), which can substitute for gasoline or diesel.
DME is a gas that is classified as nontoxic and non-carcinogenic. It
is a common propellant in many consumer products. DME can be used in
a diesel engine, as a mixture with liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in a
gasoline engine, as a propane substitute for cooking, and even as a
refrigerant.DME is a simple compound. DME can be thought of
as two methane molecules with an oxygen atom separating them. Two
hydrocarbon groups separated by an oxygen atom is an ether; in fact,
DME is the simplest ether. Each methane group is missing one
hydrogen, which allows it to form the bond with oxygen. But when DME
is burned, the products are still carbon dioxide and water, just as
when methane is burned.DME is normally produced from natural
gas or coal, in a process that first makes methanol and then
dehydrates the methanol. As a transportation fuel, DME has some
advantages over methanol, the biggest of which are that it is
nontoxic and noncorrosive. DME is a gas at room temperature, but it
is easily compressed to a liquid at modest pressure.Most of
the world’s DME production is in China. The Chinese have been using
DME for many years, and continue to increase their DME capacity. DME
allows them to convert their coal reserves into something much more
desirable for them—an LPG replacement for cooking fuel and
transportation fuel.The Swedes are also at the forefront of
rolling out DME as automotive fuel. The BioDME project is a
partnership between the Swedish companies Chemrec and Volvo, the
French company Total, and the Danish company Haldor Topsøe that is
converting pulp mills into biorefineries that produce DME from waste
black liquor. Volvo has announced that it is conducting studies on
the performance of DME in 14 of its heavy trucks, and that it is
developing an engine optimized for DME.While DME is a
promising alternative to petroleum, it suffers from the same issue as
many other options: there is no distribution network, and therefore
vehicles aren’t being built that are optimized for DME.”»
“The final catagory of petroleum gasoline substitutes consists of
drop-in replacements for gasoline. In this case, all the
infrastructure in existence would be compatible, because the fuel is
still gasoline; it is just derived from different feedstock.There
are several methods for producing gasoline from biomass, but most are
still in the development phase. Here I will discuss some of the more
widely known approaches.One route is via flash pyrolysis of
biomass and subsequent upgrading of the pyrolysis oil that is
produced. With flash pyrolysis, biomass is rapidly heated to over
900°F (500°C), and the products are pyrolysis oil (also called
bio-oil) and char. The pyrolysis oil is then reacted with hydrogen to
produce about 30% gasoline (by weight) and nearly 10% diesel. The
other products of the reaction are light gases that can be used as
fuel, as well as carbon dioxide and water.Another route is
being commercialized by Virent Energy Systems, whose technique
involves breaking down biomass into sugars and then utilizing an
aqueous-phase reforming process to convert those sugars ultimately
into hydrocarbons that are appropriate for use as gasoline, jet fuel,
and diesel.Gasoline can also be produced from methanol in a
process developed by Mobil (now ExxonMobil) in the early 1970s. The
process involves production of methanol, which is first converted to
DME, and then converted over a catalyst to gasoline-type
hydrocarbons.This process has been practiced commercially in
New Zealand, and additional projects are underway based on underway
based on the methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) technology. The Jincheng
Anthracite Mining Group in China started up a plant based on
ExxonMobil’s MTG technology in 2009. In the US, DKRW Advanced Fuels
is developing a project based on this technology in Wyoming.Other
companies are utilizing a biological approach to produce gasoline
from biomass. In most cases, genetically modified microorganisms or
algae consume sugars and then convert them into long-chain
hydrocarbons in the gasoline and diesel range. Most of the companies
working on this approach are still in an early development stage.A
major method of making a drop-in diesel replacement involves
gasification and then conversion of the gas into fuel. Gasification
may be thought of as a partial combustion reaction. Whereas a
complete combustion reaction of biomass results in carbon dioxide and
water as products, the gasification reaction stops the reaction at an
intermediate stage to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide as the
major end products. This combination of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide is commonly known as synthesis gas (syngas). Syngas can be
used as a foundation for producing a wide variety of chemicals,
including synthetic hydrocarbons, methanol, ethanol, mixed alcohols,
and DME. Syngas may also be combusted directly for power, in either
stationary power or transportation applications.Gasification
is carried out on materials containing carbon and hydrogen, such as
coal, natural gas, or biomass. These processes are referred to as,
respectively, coal-to-liquids (CTL), gas-to-liquids (GTL), and
biomass-to-liquids (BTL), and the resulting product is called
‘synthetic fuels’ or ‘XTL fuels.’ Of the XTL processes, BTL
produces the only renewable fuel (green diesel).Gasification
has been used to commercially produce liquid fuels for decades. CTL
was used during World War II by the Germans, when they had limited
access to petroleum but desperately needed fuel for their military.
At peak production, the Germans were producing over 5 million gallons
of synthetic fuels a day.South Africa during Apartheid had a
similar experience. With sanctions restricting its petroleum
supplies, South Africa followed Germany’s example and turned to
CTL, using its large coal reserves to produce liquid fuel. Sasol
(South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation) operates a number of
gasification facilities, including the 160,000 barrels per day (bpd)
Secunda CTL facility in South Africa. In total, about 25% of South
Africa’s liquid fuel is produced synthetically from coal.Shell
is also a major developer of GTL technology. Shell has operated a GTL
plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, since 1993, with a current capacity of
nearly 15,000 bpd. In 2011, Shell commissioned the 140,000 bpd Pearl
GTL plant is Ras Laffan, Qatar—by far the largest GTL plant in the
world.Capital costs are an economic challenge for all of the
XTL technologies. According to the US Energy Information
Administration’s *Annual Energy Outlook 2006*, capital costs per
daily barrel of production were estimated to be $30,000 for GTL,
$60,000 for CTL, and $120,000 to $140,000 for BTL (more than five
times the capital costs for a conventional oil refinery).Capital
costs for BTL are higher than for GTL and CTL because biomass
requires more processing than coal or natural gas prior to
gasification. Nevertheless, work is being done to commercialize BTL
technology. Rentech, a US company, completed its 10 bpd BTL
demonstration unit in 2011, and has several more projects in the
pipeline. Honeywell’s UOP is providing the upgrading technology for
the project.There are numerous substitutes—both renewable
and fossil-based—for gasoline. These fall into the categories of
drop-in replacements and substitutes. The biggest challenge for most
of the drop-in fuels is that many are higher-cost options or are
still early in development.The biggest challenge for most of
the substitutes is that much of the infrastructure for transporting,
dispensing, and using the fuel may be incompatible with specific
alternatives. This creates a chicken or the egg dilemma in which
vehicles won’t be built without infrastructure for delivering the
fuel, and the fueling infrastructure won’t be developed unless
there is a market for the fuel.One final word about
scalability. While some of these options are capable of operating on
a fairly large scale—as some of the CTL and GTL plants
demonstrate—the scale of global oil consumption is far too great
for most of the alternatives touted in the media to make a major
contribution toward displacing oil consumption. Thus, what is needed
to close the supply–demand gap as petroleum depletes is an approach
that combines some level of petroleum replacements with some
non-petroleum transportation alternatives and a healthy dose of
conservation and increased energy efficiency.”— Robert Rapier
(http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/columns/rsquared/)◊
Improve engine efficiencies» “Internal combustion engines
(ICEs) are not mules or horses: they can be made still much more
efficient even after more than a century of advances.The
three most notable recent innovations are variable compression
engines (VCE), homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) and
direct gasoline injection. While today’s automotive
gasoline-fuelled ICEs have their compression ratios fixed at around
9:1, in VCEs it can be changed continuously between 8:1 for heavy
loads and as high as 14:1 for light duty. VCEs should reduce gasoline
use by about 30% compared with equally powerful naturally aspirated
machines. HCCI may eventually combine diesel efficiency (i.e. about
40% efficiency gain) with very low nitrogen oxide and particulate
emissions. And direct gasoline injection can save about 20% of fuel
while significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions. And to
commercialize these advances will need no new infrastructures, no
multibillion dollar governmental subsidies, just persistent and
relatively low-cost tinkering with the machine whose operation we
understand better than that of any other mass-produced
artifact.Perhaps the easiest way to underscore the message is
in terms of familiar miles per gallon (mpg). Today’s passenger cars
(but not SUVs classified as light trucks) must fit into CAFE’s
minimum of 27.5 mpg. Better ICEs combined with lighter (but safer)
and more aerodynamic car bodies and smarter roads (computerized flow
management, peak-traffic pricing) could, quite realistically, double
that mean to 55 mpg within a decade—with all of the attendant
environmental gains. No new dramatic discoveries are needed to do
that, no new infrastructures, no waiting for many years of cumulative
performance of untried new techniques to pronounce them effective.”

◊ Compare the
consequences of Chernobyl with other industrial disasters, and cover
why it cannot happen here

» “The observed
health effects currently attributable to radiation exposure are as
follows:

― 134 plant staff
and emergency workers received high doses of radiation that resulted
in acute radiation syndrome (ARS), many of whom also incurred skin
injuries due to beta irradiation;

― The high
radiation doses proved fatal for 28 of these people;

― While 19 ARS
survivors have died up to 2006, their deaths have been for various
reasons, and usually not associated with radiation exposure;

― Skin injuries
and radiation-induced cataracts are major impacts for the ARS
survivors;

― Other than this
group of emergency workers, several hundred thousand people were
involved in recovery operations, but to date, apart from indications
of an increase in the incidence of leukemia and cataracts among those
who received higher doses, there is no evidence of health effects
that can be attributed to radiation exposure;

― The
contamination of milk with iodine-131, for which prompt
countermeasures were lacking, resulted in large doses to the thyroids
of members of the general public; this led to a substantial fraction
of the more than 6,000 thyroid cancers observed to date among people
who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident (as of
2005, 15 cases had proved fatal);

― To date, there
has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the
general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure.

It can be concluded
that although those exposed to radioiodine as children or adolescents
and the emergency and recovery worker operation workers who received
high doses are at increased risk of radiation-induced effects, the
vast majority of the population need not live in fear of serious
health consequences from the Chernobyl accident. Most of the workers
and members of the public were exposed to low level radiation
comparable to or, at most, a few times higher than the annual natural
background levels, and exposures will continue to decrease as the
deposited radionuclides decay or are further dispersed in the
environment. This is true for the population of the three countries
most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian
Federation and Ukraine, and all the more so, for populations of other
European countries. Lives have been disrupted by the Chernobyl
accident, but from the radiological point of view, generally positive
prospects for future health of most individuals involved should
prevail.”

» “While the
media may wish to emphasize that the final death toll attributable to
radiation ‘could reach several thousand,’ in fact they *should*
be emphasizing that it is highly unlikely to be very much more than
the ‘fewer than 50 deaths that have been directly attributed to
radiation released in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant
accident.’”

» “In a cohort of
110,645 cleanup workers from 1986 through 2006, about 19 cases of all
leukemia were attributable to radiation exposure.”

» “There is
essentially no chance that the accident could happen again.”

» “The Bhopal
disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak
incident in India, considered one of the world's worst industrial
disasters. It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the
Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya
Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas
and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way in and around
the shantytowns located near the plant. Estimates vary on the death
toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of
Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas
release. Others estimate 8,000 died within two weeks and another
8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases. A government
affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including
38,478 temporary partial and approximately 3,900 severely and
permanently disabling injuries.”

» “The world’s
deadliest energy accident was not Chernobyl; it was the collapse of a
cascade of Chinese dams during a flood in 1975. In a single night,
the failing dams killed over 26,000 people, and another 145,000 died
due to subsequent epidemics and famine. The Banqiao Reservoir Dam and
Shimantan Reservoir Dam were among the 62 dams in the Zhumadian
Prefecture of China’s Henan Province that failed catastrophically
or were intentionally destroyed during Typhoon Nina.

The dam failures
killed an estimated 171,000 people; 11 million more people lost their
homes. It also caused the sudden loss of 18 GW of power, the
equivalent of roughly 9 very large modern coal-fired power stations
or about 20 nuclear reactors, equaling about a third of the peak
demand on Great Britain’s national grid.”